Three seats are open in the Monday Drawing and Painting session.
Four seats are open in the upcoming Thursday Anatomy intensive.
Four seats are open in Tuesday online session.
The Hidden Room Atelier is an intimate, intensive program in the Great Lakes region, providing classical fine arts training in drawing, painting, sculpture, and anatomy. Since its founding in 2008, head instructor Joshua Diedrich has worked to craft a curriculum that continues the 600 year tradition of realist art, while also embracing new technologies and methodologies.
The Atelier is an extremely diverse group, with students from many backgrounds, from their teens to their 80s, but it’s also a tribe, a family of like-minded people united by their desire to be as good as they can at creating art.
“You will get better. That’s the selling point. He’s an excellent instructor, and the depth of his skill, his ability to break anything down and instantly critique, and offer an instant solution, is invaluable.”
Steve Dusiterhof, painter and CEO Gordon Water Systems
We meet in several small sections, only 5 or 10 people, once a week for an intensive workshop with classically trained figure sculptor and painter Joshua Thor Diedrich in his sculpture studio. The training is focused on giving you working tools, and teaching you how to use them effectively. We don’t waste students’ time and energy talking about your inner child or self-expression. Your best possible style arises naturally from mastering skills and solving problems. This is not training to tell you what to feel or say, but instead, to give you the words to say it clearly.
The Atelier has three different face to face sessions every week in Kalamazoo Michigan, a live model available to practice from every other week, as well as two online sections via our Discord. If you’re looking for a strong community of fellow artists to grow with, and training focused on giving you the tools to get amazingly good at your chosen medium, click here to learn more and apply today.
About the Atelier Movement
An Atelier school is a professional, working art studio primarily engaged with producing original and commissioned art, which also takes on long-term apprentices, and shorter-term students. This is the way all art was taught from ancient times, all around the world, and it still exists today as an alternative or a valuable supplement to the now popular path of university art training. The Atelier method of training is perhaps the most ancient kind of art school there is, but only recently coming back into view Taken from the French word for “studio”, the Atelier is just that: training in the working studio under a professional master artist, connected to a close-knit community of students who are trying to grow as artists, and struggling toward the same things you are.
“I enjoy the atmosphere of the studio. It’s fun yet serious. My work has become stronger as I have begun to see the human form through the lenses of geometry, anatomy, perspective. I appreciate Josh’s teaching style, it’s very responsive; he adapts a lesson or alters an exercise to better meet my understanding at the moment.”
Vicki Nelson, painter and architect
Benefits of Atelier Training
- Class sizes are small, usually less than 8 people, for maximum personal attention
- Unlike the majority of art professors, all instructors are professional, working artists who make their primary living creating and selling art
- Atelier training tends to focus on real, problem-solving technique and classical skills. Very little time is spent on “conceptual” or more abstract ideas
- Practical, focused instruction that can be custom tailored each class to address your specific goals and issues
Why Join?
The real power of classical art training isn’t that it lets your hands do new things, but that it permanently changes how you see the world. From the very first class, your ideas about how your own perception works, how the world around you works, will be shaken up and expanded. Mind-blowing ah-ha moments are common, especially in the first year of training. You will gain a clearer, more self-aware perspective that can be applied to any skill or situation. Every single week, no matter your level, you will receive powerful insights and concrete tools to “fix” your own drawings, and dramatically improve your own work. It’s not easy, but it is a clear, unambiguous set of steps that – if followed – will let you finally become the level of artist you’ve always wanted to be.
“Josh’s drawing apprenticeship is growing me in ways I never would have achieved on my own or in a traditional classroom setting. Groups are very small so we learn each other’s strengths and weaknesses very quickly. Josh is tuned in to where we are lacking and patiently challenges us each week with tailored instruction and homework assignments. He allows personal style but cares too much about our artistic growth to allow our personals styles to interfere with skill development. It isn’t easy by any means but it is important and we all enjoy each other. This apprenticeship is the best thing I’ve done for myself in a very long time.”
ellie Deleon, painter and former apprentice
The Kalamazoo Studio is located at 1050 E Michigan ave. We occupy the West building of the Kzoo Makers building complex.